Because there aren't release drivers. If you call "we consider betas to be released after a couple weeks" a release, then the most recent drivers are 346 with no PBME support. Prior to that, the most recent release was 335, a year ago.
Modern development practices have moved to continuous integration and continuous delivery. You're supposed to keep your main branch in a state that you could release it at any time, and you're supposed to release frequently enough that if you have to back a release out, then your customers lose as few changes as possible.
You're also supposed to keep your commits small, so that if you have a bug, you can quickly isolate the change that caused it, create a fix, and push it out. The fact that we had the Formula v2 freeze bug from v335 to v351 - several months - proves that Fanatec isn't following this practice.
I'm starting to agree with the posters above. I already gave up waiting on the Podium Pedals and bought Sprints; I'm thinking about selling my DD2 and buying a cube 2 as well.
i have a csw v2.0 and would like to test the new fanalabs, with the available versions of firmware it can not be used, as they are not compatible, but i would like to know if i can try some beta firmware to test fanalabs?
If anyone else was making a kit that was PC and console compatible, without adapters and such, I'd likely make the move to another vendor as well. The base has anomalies, the PBME has anomalies, the drivers and software are in perma-beta. These issues, combined, are a very bad picture for a kit costing nearly $3000.
Fanatec should adopt a true software development process and stop using words like "Beta" to avoid fixing issues within their software. A beta is typically in small release with intel fed back to devs so that improvements are made and the software released without issues. This is becoming a bit absurd, I won't blame these things on the current state of world wide quarantine, Fanatec had these problems long before Covid-19.
This next driver update if it ever comes out would wanna be something else. Almost 2 months since 361 dropped and still nothing. Good job Fanatec you've done yourselves proud. Lol might be time to sell it all and move to simucube instead.
I am also losing faith. I have always been loyal to Fanatec but these issues with drivers not being updated for so long while having clunks, jolts, losing centering, and losing connection mid race has me leaning towards selling my DD2 and going with the sim cube 2 where I have heard of none of these hardware and driver issues. I also do not want to go back to the official released drivers from months ago and not be able to use PBME and have subpar force feedback. Hoping for some news soon...….
I am a software developer, and one that use to frequently deal with boutique hardware. But this is ridiculous. You can release beta driver furiously and have infrequent official releases that are very stable. You can have a single beta drivers preceding stable releases, still infrequently.
You CAN NOT launch high end products with beta drivers, pull down the most recent driver then go dark for 3 months. It's been 6 months since the feature release for the DD wheel, but no actual release that finalizes the driver. I know that I have a working wheel, but this still makes me feel neglected and will certainly effect my next purchasing decision. The incomplete releases just give the impression of a company that doesn't know what it's doing.
If the comments above don't force fanatec to have a look at their PR practices then nothing will, I have a DD1 and it works fine on v346 but of course I would like new stable features. Fanatec has been getting heat for quite a while about their support and software but nothing has changed at all.
I get the impression that they look like a duck on the water, everything looks calm on top but it is mayhem beneath the surface.
In business nowadays to get a competitive edge if you can't do it on price you have to do it by adding quality and value, in this case the added value is good customer support and software that is regularly updated and working. While I am yet to have any issues myself from reading the forums it is clear that lots of others do. From an outsiders perspective it must look awfully like fanatec are interested in selling product but not at having a backup service to support that product. If I was not already in the fanatec ecosystem I would also look elsewhere based on customer support and service alone.
The only real take you can have on this is sadly that fanatec are more focussed on pushing product out than supporting it. You would assume that this can only come down to the almighty $$. That the profit margins are not there to offer added support or that greed is a factor, I would like to think it is the first factor.
I think the situation would be relaxed enough if Fanatec would just give us some information. I don't think the community is asking for an exact date...
But in my opinion, communication is not fluid enough. Maybe a development blog with weekly or every 2-3 days entries.
Only they have the full picture of what makes the most sense and maybe how they are working right now is the way they get less friction with their clients (I don't share it, obviously because I'm one of the affected ones).
Today I assume that two situations can occur:
- The world situation has affected the development at Fanatec very much.
- They have taken the decision of not communicating anything about the state of development and not uploading a version until they have a really stable one integrating everything they have been working on for a long time (which I respect but if it goes wrong it will generate much more friction)
really annoyed !!! not as for the lack of releases but the absence of communication !!!! pages of criticism and no one who even answers ...... appalled !!!! we spent big numbers an answer would seem the least
I use driver 346 on DD2, the best render for me, but still jolts if I use torque screen on oled indicator. And cannot use last fanalab version with this driver.
It's too long and I seriously think about selling all this stuff for a simucube.
Time to sell up your fanatec gear and buy something else guys. While people are still buying there gear your not going to get any response cause business is booming ATM with this virus. It's pretty clear that there pr team clearly lacks community communication and software developers that actually can't seem to code correctly. Move on and watch this company struggle
The complete silence just says it all really. If I wasn’t so heavily invested in Fanatec gear I would probably just sell up. I don’t thinks it a good look at all for potential buyers to be reading these forums at the minute. Then again most buyers probably won’t know this forum exists.
Don't really understand since developers do respons to PMs. Feels like the process for how the forum is supposed to be used by the dev-team is not clear towards us, the consumers.
As I think have been mentioned before there should be a clear way to follow three different releases. Stable Release, Release Candidate and Development drivers. Also not use a forum to get feedback but a ticket system where people can choose their version and report issues.
The cycles should of course be different for the different releases with Stable being slow and Development being very frequent.
My impression is that the dev-team is working hard but that we the consumers, have not been presented with that the process is which leads to people assuming nothing is happening even though lots might be happening.
Nothing but negative comments in this thread for a few days now. You would think that if fanatec cared about their customers they would have appeared by now and said something but it is just silence.
I am also disappointed in the lack of transparency. I bought a Porsche Wheel in December, thinking that drivers for my CSW 2.5 would come in Q1 20 at the latest. Still sitting here with a very expensive wheel that doesn‘t even work and no updates or timeline for a fix.
I've been lucky with my DD2, it's been working well. But still, this continuous beta... everything is beta, is getting tiring. The biggest reason people now move on to SC2 is the software issues at Fanatec. Fanalabs too... All I've ever run on my DD2 has always been some beta.
Maybe I should also just sell this thing. I've gotten now Heusinkveld for most other, so I'm not really tied to the Fanatec ecosystem.
"The other company" has stable firmware and software, and they develop it very fast and you can get info directly from the main dev. Somethings pressing issues have been solved on the stop, overnight. The difference is stark.
At Fanatec now news or any communications where we are now in five months, and still we are running beta. This doesn't create much confidence for new users coming into the game...
Comments
forum is not the best way of tracing issues and releases
I fully agree that one page that we can link any time someone ask about releases would be tremendous improvement
I would love to see proper lightway issue tracker used for that (github repo with no code would be nice, jira would be bad)
Because there aren't release drivers. If you call "we consider betas to be released after a couple weeks" a release, then the most recent drivers are 346 with no PBME support. Prior to that, the most recent release was 335, a year ago.
Modern development practices have moved to continuous integration and continuous delivery. You're supposed to keep your main branch in a state that you could release it at any time, and you're supposed to release frequently enough that if you have to back a release out, then your customers lose as few changes as possible.
You're also supposed to keep your commits small, so that if you have a bug, you can quickly isolate the change that caused it, create a fix, and push it out. The fact that we had the Formula v2 freeze bug from v335 to v351 - several months - proves that Fanatec isn't following this practice.
I'm starting to agree with the posters above. I already gave up waiting on the Podium Pedals and bought Sprints; I'm thinking about selling my DD2 and buying a cube 2 as well.
Hello,
i have a csw v2.0 and would like to test the new fanalabs, with the available versions of firmware it can not be used, as they are not compatible, but i would like to know if i can try some beta firmware to test fanalabs?
Greetings and thank you.
If anyone else was making a kit that was PC and console compatible, without adapters and such, I'd likely make the move to another vendor as well. The base has anomalies, the PBME has anomalies, the drivers and software are in perma-beta. These issues, combined, are a very bad picture for a kit costing nearly $3000.
Fanatec should adopt a true software development process and stop using words like "Beta" to avoid fixing issues within their software. A beta is typically in small release with intel fed back to devs so that improvements are made and the software released without issues. This is becoming a bit absurd, I won't blame these things on the current state of world wide quarantine, Fanatec had these problems long before Covid-19.
Honestly I'm really disappointed in the software development from fanatecs side. It's looking as bad as their customer support.
Can Fanatec please be transparent with what's going on.
This next driver update if it ever comes out would wanna be something else. Almost 2 months since 361 dropped and still nothing. Good job Fanatec you've done yourselves proud. Lol might be time to sell it all and move to simucube instead.
I am also losing faith. I have always been loyal to Fanatec but these issues with drivers not being updated for so long while having clunks, jolts, losing centering, and losing connection mid race has me leaning towards selling my DD2 and going with the sim cube 2 where I have heard of none of these hardware and driver issues. I also do not want to go back to the official released drivers from months ago and not be able to use PBME and have subpar force feedback. Hoping for some news soon...….
Just to pile on.
I am a software developer, and one that use to frequently deal with boutique hardware. But this is ridiculous. You can release beta driver furiously and have infrequent official releases that are very stable. You can have a single beta drivers preceding stable releases, still infrequently.
You CAN NOT launch high end products with beta drivers, pull down the most recent driver then go dark for 3 months. It's been 6 months since the feature release for the DD wheel, but no actual release that finalizes the driver. I know that I have a working wheel, but this still makes me feel neglected and will certainly effect my next purchasing decision. The incomplete releases just give the impression of a company that doesn't know what it's doing.
If the comments above don't force fanatec to have a look at their PR practices then nothing will, I have a DD1 and it works fine on v346 but of course I would like new stable features. Fanatec has been getting heat for quite a while about their support and software but nothing has changed at all.
I get the impression that they look like a duck on the water, everything looks calm on top but it is mayhem beneath the surface.
In business nowadays to get a competitive edge if you can't do it on price you have to do it by adding quality and value, in this case the added value is good customer support and software that is regularly updated and working. While I am yet to have any issues myself from reading the forums it is clear that lots of others do. From an outsiders perspective it must look awfully like fanatec are interested in selling product but not at having a backup service to support that product. If I was not already in the fanatec ecosystem I would also look elsewhere based on customer support and service alone.
The only real take you can have on this is sadly that fanatec are more focussed on pushing product out than supporting it. You would assume that this can only come down to the almighty $$. That the profit margins are not there to offer added support or that greed is a factor, I would like to think it is the first factor.
I think the situation would be relaxed enough if Fanatec would just give us some information. I don't think the community is asking for an exact date...
But in my opinion, communication is not fluid enough. Maybe a development blog with weekly or every 2-3 days entries.
Only they have the full picture of what makes the most sense and maybe how they are working right now is the way they get less friction with their clients (I don't share it, obviously because I'm one of the affected ones).
Today I assume that two situations can occur:
- The world situation has affected the development at Fanatec very much.
- They have taken the decision of not communicating anything about the state of development and not uploading a version until they have a really stable one integrating everything they have been working on for a long time (which I respect but if it goes wrong it will generate much more friction)
Best,
Miguel / Nikos
really annoyed !!! not as for the lack of releases but the absence of communication !!!! pages of criticism and no one who even answers ...... appalled !!!! we spent big numbers an answer would seem the least
???
I am at a loss, Reading through seems like customers have outlined the problems they are having thoroughly.
Sure your software engineering team are working hard trying to reproduce and solve these mysteries and I think everyone understands it is not
easy and does cost big numbers.
Your customers also understand that part of the purchase price of all Fanatec products is R & D
I can only imagine what the costs are to develop these great products. Everyone here just wants to race with gear that works great and they rely
on Fanatec as an industry leader to provide that trouble free racing experience for the big numbers they have invested.
No need to be annoyed with anyone here.....
I'm fed up too.
I use driver 346 on DD2, the best render for me, but still jolts if I use torque screen on oled indicator. And cannot use last fanalab version with this driver.
It's too long and I seriously think about selling all this stuff for a simucube.
Which Firmware is flashed to your base and motor?
I give up. Just put in an order for a cube 2. I'm out.
Problem ONLY with REALTIME GRAPH SCREEN, not with others screens
I'm on : PC driver 346 / WB firmware 662 / WB Motor firmware 30
Time to sell up your fanatec gear and buy something else guys. While people are still buying there gear your not going to get any response cause business is booming ATM with this virus. It's pretty clear that there pr team clearly lacks community communication and software developers that actually can't seem to code correctly. Move on and watch this company struggle
The complete silence just says it all really. If I wasn’t so heavily invested in Fanatec gear I would probably just sell up. I don’t thinks it a good look at all for potential buyers to be reading these forums at the minute. Then again most buyers probably won’t know this forum exists.
Don't really understand since developers do respons to PMs. Feels like the process for how the forum is supposed to be used by the dev-team is not clear towards us, the consumers.
As I think have been mentioned before there should be a clear way to follow three different releases. Stable Release, Release Candidate and Development drivers. Also not use a forum to get feedback but a ticket system where people can choose their version and report issues.
The cycles should of course be different for the different releases with Stable being slow and Development being very frequent.
My impression is that the dev-team is working hard but that we the consumers, have not been presented with that the process is which leads to people assuming nothing is happening even though lots might be happening.
Nothing but negative comments in this thread for a few days now. You would think that if fanatec cared about their customers they would have appeared by now and said something but it is just silence.
I am also disappointed in the lack of transparency. I bought a Porsche Wheel in December, thinking that drivers for my CSW 2.5 would come in Q1 20 at the latest. Still sitting here with a very expensive wheel that doesn‘t even work and no updates or timeline for a fix.
why this way of doing Fanatec?
Aaaaaand here we go again.
Thought this was fixed?
Not yet
Noticed this post within minutes from mine. Not a DD1, but same issue.
Thank you for the mention!
I've been lucky with my DD2, it's been working well. But still, this continuous beta... everything is beta, is getting tiring. The biggest reason people now move on to SC2 is the software issues at Fanatec. Fanalabs too... All I've ever run on my DD2 has always been some beta.
Maybe I should also just sell this thing. I've gotten now Heusinkveld for most other, so I'm not really tied to the Fanatec ecosystem.
"The other company" has stable firmware and software, and they develop it very fast and you can get info directly from the main dev. Somethings pressing issues have been solved on the stop, overnight. The difference is stark.
At Fanatec now news or any communications where we are now in five months, and still we are running beta. This doesn't create much confidence for new users coming into the game...
Absolutely agree with you...
All this is so unfortunate, I was looking forward to getting my DD2 system & Podium Porsche wheel & button box that would match up with my
other Fanatec gear so well. It also will support Motor Sports 7 and the new Motorsports 8 on PC. Simucube has no support for these titles .....
But based on what I have read about the DD2 and the the Podium Porsche button box on paper they appear to be tremendous products, it is
shame that they released these products to the public before they were supported properly by complete and stable software. Even revews at Sim
Racing Garage and Boosted Media state that the software is not complete. That coupled with the shear arrogance that they have become
annoyed that customers are not answering their questions to their satisfaction and that it should be appreciated that they are spending big
money trying to develop this software.
That post was appalling, It should have read as an apology and we are working day and night trying to fix these glitches and will keep you in the
progress loop on a daily basis, but it didn't. It seems like they do not grasp that their customers have spent thousands of dollars for a top end and
stable direct drive system ? Looks like for me I will be going in a different direction with my purchase. looking at the Simucube 2 Pro, Ascher
Racing B16M-SC Button box and Sparco 360L
I hope Fanatec get these products working properly for everyone that has already has bought in to this DD system , Good luck